chains of the aviary
by allissrose
Summary: I'm the hero of my story—I don't need to be saved. (Graylu. AU.)
_**A/N:**_ Mggfh. Longest thing written _ever_ in which - for real - _nothing actually happens._ Boy, mama's proud: medalworthy accomplishment right there.

 _sidenote:_ figured out that "It's Monday" is my default way of starting _everything_

* * *

 _waking: 8:34 AM_

"It's Monday."

She rubs her eyes.

"Again. Last Monday didn't feel like that long ago. But...here we go, I guess!"

Today, it feels like the right thing to say, even though she's stifled in a fist of crumpled blankets and her mouth tastes like unbrushed teeth. Morning rituals are strange, but strangely important to her. She tells her ceiling "here we go again" more out of respect, than anything else.

Lucy manages to stumble out of bed. _Score: Lucy Heartfilia! Surging ahead of the bed by a whopping one point!_

Until the tangle of sheets grab for her legs and she falls face-first into that pile of laundry she _meant_ to pick up yesterday—it's never a bad idea, though, to leave soft things around to cushion your fall.

Beds have it _so_ easy: all they have to do is lie there for padding. Obviously, she could to that if she tried…couldn't be any harder than _moving._

Lucy sighs. She grabs something pink and soft-looking from the pile and shoves it over her head. Then she notices it's backwards and tries it again.

It's Monday again, definitely. Lucy can't ever put her clothes on right on Mondays.

Somewhere in the pile she tracks down a pair of matching socks, which she lays carefully aside for tomorrow.

She can never find matching socks on Tuesdays.

.

.

 _a talent: 8:40 AM_

Days change, and people change, but time never does. And Lucy's grateful for that—that something always has order, and there's a way to make sense of things that make _no_ sense. There's no order outside her small, mechanized world. So she chose time over the feeling that she always had: that someone placed her on her head and spun her seven times around the earth, and whatever she feels now is a twenty-year long fever dream born from vertigo, that she's disoriented, and something _needs_ to happen. Either a kiss or a slap in the face—she needs to _wake up._

It's impossible to deny her wakefulness when she can feel the seconds rocking her underfoot, that lulling feeling, of breathing, or of having an existence that has capacity. Size, _there_ ness, equates to potential, doesn't it?

When she was small, it was like a magic trick.

Her teacher would cover up all the clocks with fabric and the kids would test her all day: "What time is it, Lucy? How many seconds passed since naptime, Lucy? How many times did I blink today?"

Numbers bubbled up from nowhere, and Lucy would repeat them; it'd been twelve-fifteen, a hundred and ninety seconds had passed since naptime ended, and thanks, but she had better things to do than watch you _blink_.

The interest baffled her.

Could there be a more useless talent than knowing how to _count_ things? Her teacher called it a 'finely attuned body clock', which Lucy thought she knew what it meant but it made Natsu _flip_ because he thought she'd _swallowed a freaking clock._

"Like, if we don't get it outta you, Lucy, you're gonna start eating some pirate's _hand_ and—!"

"Natsu. This isn't Peter Pan, okay?"

(At exactly eight-forty-two, Lucy spits into the sink and puts her toothbrush back.

It's not as fascinating now as it was in preschool.)

.

 _breakfast: 8:59 AM_

Lucy eats a granola bar in a room surrounded by cuckoo clocks.

Without glancing at them she thinks, _Any second now._

A million birds tweet and warble and wheeze and screech (except for a little one about the size of a button hole, which goes _chicka-dee-dee-deeee)._ Maybe two clock chimes would've been pretty, but all of them together is clamoring: a thunderclap and a cymbal crash of mess and noise.

But she likes listening to the birdsong anyways. She likes annoying her neighbors.

She thinks about all those times the birds are going to chirp while she's gone, and how there's going to be no one to hear them.

.

 _working: 10:02 AM_

"Last Monday there wasn't any snow."

She writes that down.

At work, time speeds to match the beat of the _click-click-click_ of fingers tapping on keyboards, and if it'd been your heartbeat, flashing by, fluttering, you might have been falling in love, or dying, or maybe just on a caffeine rush about to crash-land into tired.

Coffee kills the drudgery, but it kind of kills the mind, too, so Lucy just settles for being tired.

.

 _conversation: 12:09 PM_

"Hey, Erza, can you pass me some copy paper?"

"Our printer is adequately stocked, Lucy."

"Oh, yeah! Yeah, I know. I just...uh, I wanted to write something down."

"If Mister Dryar has asked you to make note of an appointment you may easily record it in his digitalized scheduler—"

"Um, no, it's not really _for_ the boss. Just...a thought I had. I wanted to, like, make a note of it. Is that okay?"

"Is it business-related? Has something come up? Something _important?"_

"...Not...exactly...no, I guess. No. It's more of a—a _personal_ thing? But Erza, I just _really_ wanted to—"

Erza pushes up her glasses. "Lucy Heartfilia, we leave on a planet with finite resources, and the thought of wasting precious paper—paper that is purchased from the _office account,_ as an _office resource_ —is not to be wasted on such frivolous—"

"Oh, okay. I get it. It's cool. Just forget I asked."

"What are you doing, thinking about _personal matters_ at work?" Erza's frown is impressively dry, impressively stern. "Don't waste my time, Lucy. You still have several drafts to edit and the telephone might ring any moment now."

Lucy brightens. "Oh! Erza! Y'see, that's kinda what I wanted to talk to you about; I have this idea—like, um, it's dumb and all, but I...anyways, you're so _smart_ and—uh, I've never really written before! So I wanted your help because I've been thinking about this stor—"

" _Work,_ Lucy. _Now."_

"S-sorry, Erza! I d-didn't mean to waste your time, since you're so busy and all. Um—talk about my story-thing-idea-which-might-be-totally-stupid….later….E-Erza?"

But Erza's gone.

 _Twelve-fifteen,_ Lucy sighs. _It's her lunch break. Of course._ She closes her eyes and leans her head back against the cool, glass double-doors of Magnolia Publishing Co.

There's a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches, courtesy of Mira; Lucy grabs one before slipping back into her cubicle and slamming the door shut.

.

.

 _3:31 PM_

Lucy steals some copy paper.

But she's already forgotten what she wanted to write down.

.

.

 _work ends: 4:00 PM_

"Alright, everyone, time to lock up."

The Grand Shuffling commences: a messy snatch for papers to stuff back into files, coffee cups to toss into dustbins, and bags to zip and coats to button and an double-door to swing past and mark another day survived. Lucy throws away the grilled cheese she never ate, furtively slips the copy paper back into the printer—

"Lucy?"

She stops. From the corner of her eyes she sees a flash of red; office lamps streaking across the frame of glasses— _Erza's_ glasses. Erza's red nails tapping her chin.

"...Y-yes, ma'am."

Erza smooths her skirt down and says primly, "I require your presence for a few minutes after hours. Is this acceptable?"

"Of c-c-c—"

"Of course? Good. Thank you." She surveys the rest of her coworkers, who flit their gaze back and forth between Erza and Lucy, half of them curious, a few sympathetic, while the rest just sigh as the last of their caffeine reserves drain away; and they're left exhausted. (Mira hefts a passed-out Cana over her back and waves at Lucy on her way out the door.) "The rest of you may go. Good afternoon."

They shuffle out like a procession of lost souls.

Lucy's spit cements in her throat when she gulps.

"I'm," Erza says, "the editor here. You _do_ know that, don't you?"

"C-course I do, Erza," Lucy says, suddenly wishing she'd ate because her stomach feels hollow, and it rattles, too, like her bones are grinding together, shaking all up inside her ribcage.

"This is _my_ office."

"Uh—uh-huh! Yep. Absolutely _."_

"And you recall the conversation we had earlier: about you, being distracted, making off with office resources? _My_ office resources?"

"Oh—hmm, yes, we, uh, we did discuss that, didn't we?" Lucy feels a little like laughing, but she doesn't, instead rubbing the back of her neck with one hand while twisting her earring around with the other. God _,_ she must look _nuts._

Erza's hands fist on her hips—that's never a good sign.

See, Erza is one of _those_ people: always calm, in control, practical to a fault; and she doesn't really... _get_ the idea of screwups. Or bad hair-days. Or, like, anything less than beauty, or talent, or confidence, or any downsides that came with being human beings; just because Erza simply doesn't _have_ them. It was like—like she's beautiful, and clever and good at all these things, except...she didn't really _know_ that being _her_ was unusual or something, and when other people don't match her, she looks...a little _lost,_ somehow. Walls rigid as metersticks getting bent out of shape.

She looks like that now: face pinched, hair long and red and lovely. Clenched fists.

"E-Erza…"

" _What?"_ she snaps.

Lucy swallows hard. "Erza...I had an idea for a story. I wanted to write it down."

One fist slackens.

"You did?" Erza says, as the creases between her eyebrows relax. "Oh. _Oh._ Is that all?"

"That's a-all," Lucy whispers, meekly.

"You wanted to _write_ a—oh. Lucy, that's...I never knew you _write."_ The last frown lines disappear, her scorn mellowing, until she just looks puzzled. "If you wanted to use a few sheets of paper for _that_ —"

"I, um, only took two. And if I had used them, I would've replaced them, honest!"

"Oh." Her eyebrows scrunch. "Well. I never would have thought."

"So...are you still mad? You're—n-not going to _fire_ me, right?" Lucy says nervously, hands clammy.

Erza scoffs. "Lucy, I was never going to _fire_ you. God, I'm not a slave driver or anything like that." Her face softens. "Besides, your work is...well, I must say, your work is very good. You're a—a _valuable_ addition to the company."

That's the first Lucy's heard of it.

"Wait—what _?_ It...it _is?_ I mean, I am? I-I mean…"

"I _mean_ you're not fired. And…well, this _is_ a publishing company. As editor—" she stops to cough into her sleeve—"as editor I can't exactly _discourage_ young writers, can I?"

Lucy blinks.

"Now," Erza says, prompt and brisk as ever, "what is this idea you speak of, and how can I be of assistance?"

Lucy stares.

"Lucy?" _Snap snap snap._ "Lucy, are you still with me here?"

Except Lucy...forgot. She _forgot._ She...she fucking _forgot,_ and Erza's here now, Erza's _listening_ to her, for once, and this may never happen again—but Lucy forgot, because Lucy is a fool, because Lucy is a secretary at the biggest publishing company in the state and because Lucy is a god—fucking— _fool_ —

She knows it's four-seventeen pm, and since she left home, her birds have sang seven times in her absence.

Chances are slippery.

And Lucy has always been a klutz _._

.

.

 _4:17 PM_

"Erza,"

She has nothing to say.

"Well, Lucy?"

"Are you _really_ going to help me?"

"It depends. Is this your dream?"

"Yeah."

"Is this why you wanted to work here?"

"Yeah."

"Is—" Erza coughs again. "Is this what you wanted to...tell me earlier?"

"Yeah," Lucy says, softly.

"And," Erza says louder, as if she needs to declare it to the whole world to get it off her chest, "did I or did I _not_ ignore you, ridicule you, and—uh—scold...you?"

Lucy is quiet.

But then she admits, hesitantly, fearfully, "Um, maybe you kinda did."

"Then, I guess that...I'm"—Erza coughs, _again,_ like she's sick, only Erza Scarlet doesn't _get_ sick. "I. Am….I _am_ —"

Something surges up Lucy's veins, something warm and golden—something that makes her feel _brave,_ and for a moment she thinks it might be tequila.

Or courage maybe.

But she spits out a, "Did you mean _sorry?"_ before it can abandon her.

Erza looks a little surprised, eyes wide (and Lucy notices for the first time that they're light brown and large behind their glasses, just like hers _)._ She nods. "Yes. _Sorry._ I acted...well, inexcusably, though it was a _very_ trying day—not that I'm making excuses or anything, but—well—...may I ask your forgiveness?"

Erza smiles sometimes, thinly, prettily, with her lips closed; but never this sheepish grin, embarrassed and tired and charming all at once.

"You look nice when you smile," Lucy says.

" _Do_ I? Hmm." Erza taps her chin like the idea of her looking _nice_ has never occurred to her. "Interesting. I'll keep that in mind."

"Thank you, Erza." Lucy gathers up her belongings and slings her bag over her shoulder, waving goodbye. "See you tomorrow."

"Wait!"

She stops.

"What about the story you wanted to talk to me about?"

Lucy feels like the button-sized bird with its chest puffed out. She almost _chicka-dee-dee_ s right in Erza's face.

"I have to go find one first!"

And she dances right out of the glass double-doors of Magnolia Publishing Co, into a world where it's still snowing—and things are different today.

Her body clock grinds. It hiccups. And then it stops.

"Something is going to change," she announces, as snowflakes settle on her face.

.

.

Her story is named Gray—Gray...Blockbuster, she thinks. Something like that. Okay, so the story won't ever be _hers,_ because she isn't him. They're about as similar as sweet and bitter or gold and coal.

He lets her listen, though, and that's enough. Lucy doesn't usually talk to strangers, but she does talk to him, and Gray doesn't talk to anyone except himself; but there's no harm in letting someone hear him mutter. Possibly, he feels less lonely that way.

But probably not.

Maybe it was pity; seeing a girl wandering on some lakeside in a blizzard with a notepad and a cuckoo clock, asking for a story, and just giving her one so she'll go inside and go away—because the lakeside is _Gray's_ place.

But then again.

So what if he never says yes? So what if the blonde just follows him around, doesn't talk because she's ashamed of that stutter, shivering but won't admit she's cold? So what if he's got no reasons?

It's cold, there's a girl, he's got a story that she wants, for her own reasons, which she doesn't tell—it's cold, there's a clock with a bird that annoys the hell out of him, he talks to himself for a while and lets the blonde girl listen.

It's cold, she shivers like a wet cat, he doesn't. His shirt is long and warm. Swiftly, he pulls it off and gives it to her.

Memories flood back with that gesture, memories he scatters, but he mutters something about them and the blonde girl rights it down, arms tangled in the long sleeves of his coat.

His name isn't Blockbuster, by the way. It's _Full_ buster. Blockbuster isn't even _open_ anymore, ya ditz.

He says all that without even glancing when he hears her laugh.

.

.

"So there was a girl."

Lucy smiles at him behind her notepad, and she quickens her pace so that they're side-by-side and can't avoid catching her in his periphery, like he'd been trying so hard to do. She's used to not being seen, but _this…_ this was important.

"What kind of girl?"

"Ya know, a _girl_ kinda girl. What, they come in species now? Got some kinda chart to classify 'em?" When he tries to sound annoyed it doesn't work with the type of voice he has: rusty-soft. Too pretty to be fair.

 _All_ of Gray is too pretty to be fair. Juvia was too pretty to be fair, too. That's why everyone always commented on how they looked together; coal against blue, bruised colors. It _should've_ been bad.

"Her name was…?"

"...Juvia. Like—"

"—the rain?"

"Yeah." Finally his gaze shifts, not to Lucy, but to stare out at the murky water, a shifting pattern of black and white as it reflects the wisps of gliding clouds.

He figures out too late that he's talking directly _to_ her, and decides it's not so bad.

"Wow. That name is so _pretty._ So storybook."

Gray rolls his eyes. "Yeah. I guess she thought so, too, since she said it all the damn time. 'Juvia wants to go to the mall.' 'Will Gray-sama tell Juvia what's wrong?' 'Gray-sama! Kill that spider for Juvia!'" He shakes his head and sighs. "Jesus, that girl was crazy."

Efficiently, Lucy abridges every word into bullet points: Juvia. Third person. Rainy. Dislikes spiders.

"But cute?" she guesses.

Gray looks down. "Maybe a little." Floppy bangs cover his eyes now; could be he's thinking about her.

"So—um, do you love her?"

"Maybe a little."

He twists his necklace around and shoves his hands in his pant pockets, like he doesn't know where to put them. "She's dead. By the way." He looks at Lucy, notices she's stopped writing, and adds, "And her hair was blue. Like eyelashes and everything. Isn't that kind of—"

"She must've been beautiful."

"Hmm." He tilts his head. "She is."

She _is_.

Maybe her ashes were blue, too.

.

.

Juvia _was_ a kind of girl—only Gray wasn't sure exactly what kind. Everyone liked her smile but thought her eyes were too big for her face just because she was beautiful and beautiful people _should,_ fairly, have something wrong with them.

Juvia didn't.

She wasn't the smartest but she wasn't dumb, either. She wore a lot of blue. When she spilled vanilla fro-yo on herself it showed, a _lot._ And she started freaking out, because Juvia had a freak-out-loud pair of lungs, and a crazy-freak pair of brains to match.

Gray had a thing against wearing clothes, and against mental girls, so he gave her his shirt—no questions asked. And she bought him more frozen yogurt because it's a nice thing to do; even for unfairly pretty boys without shirts who have smiles as white as the stains on her top.

Gray let her keep the shirt that day, and she wrote her name and number down on his ice cream spoon (with winkie faces in the zeros, which _should've_ annoyed him but maybe it didn't). He threw the spoon in the trashcan. Fished back it out the day before the garbage was collected.

Words aren't Gray's thing—but if you asked him, and he _had_ to answer, then maybe he'd say he loved her. A little bit. Steady guys do their loving in steady ways, and their hearts beat at plodding paces.

Juvia's didn't.

She had a heart that basically needed _shovelfuls_ of energy to keep it speeding—whimsical and fast, taking steps two at a time. Juvia's energy was _boundless._ She swam fast and loved fast in a selkie-like kind of way, zips plus dives plus passion.

Life flashed by with her around. Two years passed and before Gray knew it, high school was over.

He didn't know what he wanted to do, so Juvia packed a bag and packed Gray along with her, and they left to venture somewhere they never wanted to go.

He said, "I love you" to her at the train station, but the sound of the whistle drowned him out.

She whispered it into his hair when he fell asleep in the airport. Again against his lips when he woke up.

After that, he called Lyon on the payphone to tell him that he wasn't coming back.

.

.

"But we did," Gray says. "Come back, I mean. Some family stuff."

"Oh. Your brother..."

"Lyon," he supplies. With a glance at her notepad, he adds, "It's spelled with a _y._ "

Lucy bites her lip as she scratches out the _Leon_ on her paper. "Um, s-sorry."

"You stuttered less before, y'know that?"

"I g-guess." Lucy looks down. "It's just that I work at this publishing c-company, and like, it's weird, right? That someone with m-my job would make spelling mis—never mind."

"Publishing company, huh?" Gray says. "So. _That's_ why you were wanderin' around here all night. Wanna impress your boss or somethin'?"

"Um, I…" Lucy gives up and buries her face in the sleeves of Gray's shirt. "Could we—could we not talk about me?"

He shrugs. "Sure. Whatever." A moment passes. "But hey—who _are_ you, anyway?"

A muffled "L-Lucy" comes out from behind the mask of cotton, and Gray grins a little, even though he doesn't want to. It's not the grinning kind of mood.

He gently pries the sleeves off her face.

"C'mon, Lucy. Relax. I'm not gonna _eat_ cha."

"I'm, uh," Lucy says, " _usually_ not this—yeah." She eyes him for a moment, barechested when it's bitterly cold out, wondering if she's just imagining the lack of goosebumps on his skin, or if he really _is_ cold after all. "Are you _sure_ you don't want this back? It's _freezing."_

He shakes his head. "Nah. I don't get cold."

"Everyone gets cold," she protests. "Your blood—it must be like fire in there."

"Yeah?"

He pokes her cheek with her fingertip, smiling when she lets out a surprised, " _Yeek!"_ and then a, " _brrrr."_ The skin of his hand is like ice against her face. "Oh, _god_ , Gray! Are you okay? T-there must be some coffee back at the lodge or a _fire,_ or something! We need to like _dunk_ you in the fire because—oh, just take this shirt back _now."_ In a struggle of tangled up limbs she tries to yank it off and hurl it at him.

She can never deal with clothes right on Mondays.

Gray's laughing at her now. Openly. In her face _guffawing._

"Gray...uh—"

"Jesus. Are you _stuck?"_

"It's not _funny,"_ she says, pitifully. "It's not my fault, either. Mondays. It's _always_ Mondays, isn't it?"

" _What's_ always Mondays? You look like a jungle gym—"

"A little help here?"

"Hold on." He fishes a phone from the back pocket of his jeans and snaps a picture of her first, and then sighs, contentedly. " _That's_ goin' on the Internet soon."

"GRAY BLOCKBUSTER YOU—"

" _Full_ buster, chick. Thought we got that covered." His laughing still rages on, until Lucy—gentle Lucy, sweet, _shy_ , stuttering _Lucy_ —wants nothing more than to _smack_ him straight into the lake and let his bones get picked clean by piranhas.

Or anything like that. At this point she'll make do with a flesh-eating trout or a pygmy shark or _something_. She's desperate _,_ okay?

"Youch! My...arms…. _Gray…"_

"Okay," he says. "Okay, okay. I gotcha. Now then." His laugh subsides _way_ too gradually; from a guffaw to a chuckle and finally to this strangled hiccup sound, like the effort of keeping his amusement in is making air go down the wrong pipe. "So."

"Help," Lucy croaks.

"I _know._ Just—how? Didja manage to... _this?"_

She sighs. "I was trying to get the shirt off, but my notepad got tangled up in my hoodie, and my hoodie strings got wrapped around my face, and I _think_ —yep, okay. Uh, turns out that the sleeves of your shirt are sorta tied around my ankles." She blushes, suddenly. "Oh! Oh, my jeans better not be falling down."

Gray scratches his head, still smiling. "You...want me to _check_ or somethin'?"

"NO!" she screeches, at the same time the cuckoo clock announces, " _Chicka-dee-dee-deeeeee…"_

Somehow the clock ended up perched on her head.

"Whaddaya know," Gray says. "It's six pm already."

"I never should've brought that stupid clock."

.

.

.

Lyon got into some trouble, and Gray went home to bail him out.

The whole affair was sticky. He got into a couple of fistfights, Juvia kneed a couple guys in the crotch, Lyon outran a couple police officers and a pack of hounds. Not that any of that was new for him; Lyon always had a habit of tripping himself into all the wrong situations, and Gray learned pretty fast how to fix them.

He didn't really know how to _fix_ the fact that his brother was in love with his girlfriend, but—well.

Some things can't be helped.

Unlike most brothers, Gray and Lyon had never fought all that much. There's the usual stuff; sports competitions, arguments over who gets to pick the TV shows, races for the last Coke in the cooler, high stakes rock-paper-scissors in the minivan during road trips. Things brothers do. Things _families_ do.

Except that even if they could compete, would there have been a point?

Lyon might have been stronger; Gray was faster. Gray was calm but Lyon was fierier, angrier. An impulsive, ambitious, impossibly clever kid who thinks he can charm his way out of every pickle—just like he charms his way _into_ them. Common ground? Before Juvia, there was no common ground, and _after_ Juvia, there's _still_ no common ground.

See, Gray always knew Lyon was a canary in a coal mine. He still wasn't totally prepared, though, for all the hurt it warned of.

Juvia changed things. She flattened them onto the same level, made them look each other in the eye.

"And we were glaring," Gray tells Lucy. "At each other, at her, at everyone. It was a big shitting mess."

 _ **You're**_ _a big shitting mess._

Lyon, white hair, black eyes, glaring and lovesick and furious.

"You're not good for her, Gray. She's nothing like you. I'm nothing like you, don't you get it? It's natural—species cluster, birds flock, all that crap, but you're not _good_ for her."

Gray just raised his eyebrows. "You are?"

Lyon had nodded in a way that was somehow flamboyant, arrogant, and nobly romantic; and it made Gray kind of want to throw up.

"Screw your birds. That doesn't even make sense, Lyon," he'd said calmly.

"It means you're too _different,_ Gray. You couldn't possibly understand someone like her. She's too fast for you. One day she'll get sick of you waiting to catch up—and, unlike you, I don't have to _wait_ to love her. I'm there now!"

"Juvia knows I love her," Gray replied in an even tone.

"Yeah?" Tosses his head in challenge, only no one is actually challenging Lyon. "Ask her. Give me an hour, one _single hour,_ and then ask her. You'll see."

"This is stupid."

 _This was stupid!_

He set Lyon's life back in order, slapped him on the back, and left him to rot there. Juvia walked away with him without a word.

.

.

.

Juvia walked away _from_ him without a word.

"Lyon?" Lucy says.

"Yeah. Lyon." Gray shakes his head. "Stupid passionate determined little bastard."

"I thought she loved _you."_

"She does—shit, _did._ It wasn't like you think. Lyon's always been kinda shady, but...he got mixed in with some _bad_ guys after that. Juvia knew them, I guess. Old...gang members of hers or something."

"Gang members!" Lucy squeaks.

Gray snorts, winding her shirtsleeves away from her jeans; it's a complicated process, unravelling Lucy from her messes. The notepad in the hoodie is tightly ensnared, requiring a lot of clawing from nails to release it.

"Yeah," he says. "Gang members. Members of gang. Bad guys. Juvia's old pals, apparently—basically some douches with weird makeup who called themselves _phantoms._ Real freaks."

"Oh my god."

"Look," Gray sighs. "Juvia was funny and weird and pretty and I loved her, but she was annoying and she used to be _really_ messed up. And she hung out with messed up people. I don't think she wanted me to know—so she just left. Thought she could fix this one up by herself without me finding out about that part of her."

"And...did she?" Lucy asks very quietly.

 _Did she? Or didn't she?_ Gray did find out, yet the gang got arrested. Lyon's ass was saved, and yet Juvia…

"Not exactly."

His voice is heavy with her death, then, so heavy that if he were tossed into the lake, he would sink. Like a big steady rock, he'd just sink and lay on the bottom and freeze, except without actually _dying_ because of his thing with the cold—

"She was so _stupid,"_ he mutters. "Jesus, she was _so."_

He turns then, watches the sky dye from bluish to pale-pinkish in a pathetically anemic sunset. He spits into the lake.

Lucy closes her notepad and cries.

.

.

.

One knife wound in the leg. Too much bleeding. Lyon all messed up, vomiting, filthy, blood and dirt on his face and around his eyes—red-wet-black, unangry un _made_ not-Lyon eyes.

There was a skinny sundressed girl who wouldn't stop crying. A gruff boy in piercings who chewed iron shavings. Lyon wouldn't blink, wouldn't take a shower or wash the blood (her blood? his blood?) off his face, until he smelled like something out of a garbage heap.

Eventually Gray shoved his face under the tap to rinse the leaf-things and blood-things out of his little brother's hair. He feeds the husk of Lyon and waters it when he remembers; most of all, he lets it sit in the bathroom and cry. Since that's what Lyon does nowadays: sits in bathrooms and raves and _cries._

Gray doesn't cry.

.

.

.

"This satisfy your boss?" Gray asks.

Lucy doesn't answer.

"Lucy—hey, _Lucy._ Don't cry. It's cool, okay? It was a few months ago. Lyon's fixing himself up this time. Juvia's gone and buried. I'm back in college now, and it's—it's _fine_."

She's sniffling and tied together, but the hiccups stop.

Gray softens a little and says, "Okay. I think we're done here—'cause I guess that was it? You need a ride home, or food, or something?"

"I'm o—no, no I'm fine." Lucy drags his sleeves across her drippy red eyes. "I'm sorry. I cry at Subway commercials, honestly. Oh, b-boy. This...is a new low, even f-for _you_ , Lucy—"

"Hey…I told you, it's okay." Gray awkwardly pats her on the shoulder. "This is totally nuts, chick. You're totally _nuts_ with your clocks and _stories_ and shit, but—good luck with your boss lady."

"And good luck with your…" Lucy trails off, turning big, imploring eyes on him: Good luck with _what?_ Apologies stick in her throat, but she has nothing to apologize for. She wants to _say_ goodbye, but— "Effing mother of Erza," Lucy mutters. "Fine. _Fine._ Gray Something-Buster—"

"Fullbuster!"

"Good luck, get warm, thank you, I love you, and take back this shirt!"

In the process of taking it off, to throw it at him once more (it's untied now. Mostly.) Lucy actually succeeds for once (screw _that,_ no-matching-sock Tuesday) but she hasn't played baseball since fourth grade and her pitching arm _sucks._

Shirtsleeves go lasso-style around his neck, she pulls it back, she trips, and—smush.

Wet-red-soft, Gray-Lucy lips, product of accidents involving bosses, printer paper, cuckoo clocks, and plain _awful_ Mondays.

.

.

 _Seven-pm_

"Oh, I will _smash_ that effing clock."


End file.
